Prince Harry on the wave at the Surf Ranch. Photo: Raimana Van Bastolaer // Instagram
Wave pools have often been hailed as a democratizing force in surfing. The ability to build a wave inland promised a way to wrest the sport away from the wealthy and entitled residents of beach cities, who often go to great lengths to scare away outsiders and newcomers. However, that promise has not quite been fulfilled, yet.
Instead, the prohibitive cost of riding high-performance wave pools has created an even more exclusive stratum of surfing. In particular, Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California, has taken that new market and turned it into a cottage industry. It seems not a week goes by without seeing a new celebrity being expertly guided into a barrel by the facility’s resident surf coach, Raimana Van Bastolaer (who has perhaps the best job in surfing, and deservedly so).
The latest to ride the train-powered wave was none other than Prince Harry. Video of the excursion was posted to Van Bastolaer’s Instagram account. The edit shows the royal making an assisted takeoff, followed by some respectable trimming down the line, all to the soundtrack of Bastolaer alternately barking out stance corrections and exhuberantly cheering him on. After the video came a still of Harry taking a rather respectable stance inside the tube.
“In Tahiti, we still call you Prince Harry, but at Surf Ranch, it’s my Brother,” wrote Raimana in the caption. “It was an honor to have you surf with me, [Kelly Slater] and [Michael Anders].”
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